Monday, February 23, 2015

This week was wonderful :)
Meeting members, teaching people, contacting, it was all so great!!!

I know the church is true, I know that God loves us.

Sorry for the quick e-mail! It was a crazy e-mail time. I will send some really good pictures next week. Just know, I saw a lion dance, did a Lo-Hei (Singapore tradition!) and enjoyed oranges, pineapple tarts, and Ang-Pau.

Love you all and pray for your success in life :)

Love,
Sister Crabb

Looks like she ran out of time for a group email - these are some of her responses to our questions to her in our emails to her:

CNY was so fun!!! It was better than Christmas. I would LOVE to celebrate it back at home when I'm there :). I saw a lion dance, did a classic Singapore Lo Hei (where they toss the salad) and yes, I got SO many mandarins. Like, 20. It's a gift of luck, just like the Ang Pau. And, everything has to be in 2's. It was a fun week because I got to visit a lot of people in the ward, because they were actually home because there are 4 days off for CNY. I got so many snacks, and about 60 dollars total from Ang Pau. So nice.
He (Elder Ballard) is coming to SG just on Friday and Saturday. He will be speaking to the members. We can't really yet (contact/proselyte)...but we are putting a focus back on contacting, and letting God bring people to us.

I'm sorry I don't keep you in the loop very well with our Investigators! These plus the 3 you mentioned, are our pool and they are doing well. We're teaching  another part member family - a 9 year old boy named C J - and he is close to being on date. He is trying to finalize his answer with God, but told us he's pretty sure he needs to be baptized. The dad of this family took the lessons 10 years ago, and we want to teach him again because he probably got memorized discussions and not PMG lessons! He is such a good dad, even though he's not a member. He comes to church, and plays with his kids, and is so good. He would be a perfect member of the church.

We met a cute old Hindu man and his wife this week that we are now teaching! It was actually a tender mercy because we accidentally called the wrong number in our log of calls, and he picked up and really wanted to learn. He is super nice.

Besides that, we are also teaching a lady named T, who is also ready to be baptized, but just has an issue with her brother who is studying to be a pastor and doesn't like our church at all. Family is first in Chinese culture, and she doesn't want to blemish his record by being baptized - yet. She will baptize someday, she said it's really hard for her right now. She had a dream though, and knows the church is true.

Also, we are meeting another LA (less active) part member family occasionally, and we are also hoping to start teaching more people! There are a lot more people to find and teach here in CCK.

Anyway, love you! Have a great week! Remember, to always be an example of Christ in word, conversation, and deed. It's the best thing you can do!

Monday, February 16, 2015

Gong Xi Fa Cai!! In other words...Happy Chinese New Year. I've said that to so many people, and they get super excited when I say it. They seem to really like that I know the culture here! Which, after 9 months, I understand relatively well. And, I will tell you about Chinese New Year! It's basically a normal day, but we get to deliver 2 mandarins to people, and ang pau envelopes with scriptures.

This week was full of so many ups and downs! We had a couple sick days this week, but overall, it was good. I was able to really enjoy Valentine's Day, and celebrated by getting a card with little flowers shaped into a heart from Sister Reach. She knows I love flowers....so, she did it for me! She's so thoughtful and nice. Besides that...I enjoyed going around an entire University campus by bus on a way to a member's house! It took about an hour, and by the time we got to the member's house, we thought we probably should head back since it took an hour to get there, and would take an hour to get back. Little did we know, it only took 10 minutes to get back. So, our whole night was thrown off! (reading between the lines, we think they probably didn't know how to get there and ended up taking the long way).

We're still waiting for a date with the part member daughter, but we are hoping it'll be the 28th. Elder M. Russell Ballard is coming to Singapore to speak, and if she can be baptized that date, the apostle will be there for it. That would be exciting, right?

This week, we were able to have a really cool lesson with our investigator J! We had a good talk about reading the Book of Mormon and 3 Nephi 11. We felt the spirit, and know he did too. It was really cool too, because he said he really wants to get baptized, he just needs to figure out the right church. So, we encouraged him to read and pray. I was able to promise him (based on a prompting of the spirt of course!) that if he comes and sees Elder Ballard, he will get his answer. So, I really hope he comes! We are going to do everything we can to get him to be there.

Also, we were able to teach our Indian investigator, and after we taught, the member took us out for a huge Indian buffet. It was so good. I love Indian food! Also, I was really craving spicy food this week. Asian food is the best. Really. I also got to enjoy hotpot this week with the Relief Society in honor of CNY (Chinese New Year), and it was really fun. I thought of you Mom and Dad!!

We also had a great experience when we were finding a former. We were in an elevator, and I was frantically flipping through the ward directory to find the floor we needed to go to. As I was flipping, Sister Reach talked to this wonderful girl. She was saying that she loved Jesus, and that she is free every Sunday, and that we can easily meet up and that she would love to come to church! We got her number, and it was such a tender mercy.

There are so many miracles right now, and we are really focused on finding prepared people. We have some really good options of people to teach, and hope that they will make the time to meet with us. The spirtual highlight of the week for me this week was our zone meeting. We were able to go and talk about how it takes faith to find. So, why aren't we finding? Because we have some sort of fear, and it's rooted in pleasing man. We are scared because we don't want to offend. We don't want to follow up because we don't want to annoy, etc. So, we talked about how we need to root out fear with faith, and that perfect love can do it! We can experience miracles every single day, if we only have faith.

So, my thought to you is look inside yourself and see what fear is holding you back from having perfect faith in a loving Heavenly Father. Everyone has some, and we all need to get rid of it in order to experience more miracles in our lives! The only person that inhibits us from getting where God wants us to be is ourselves. We hold God back from doing what He needs to by not having perfect faith in Him. Fear is not a characteristic worthy of a child of God, and honestly, we have nothing to fear, because everyday is a New Start "Because of Him" if we only apply the Atonement and the beautiful gospel.

If you have time, look up Mormon 9: 15-22.

Love you all!!
Love,
Sister Crabb

Monday, February 9, 2015

So, this week there isn't a lot of time, or a lot to share! It was just a typical week. Lots of people cancelled on us this week...so it was a little bit slower and harder! However, there are some great things going on.

This week in the work we just randomly met this man on the train who we started talking to. He ended up being really friendly, and was very impressed that we are here changing people's lives. He walked us around the HDB's, helping us find where we needed to go. He said that he would be fine to meet up, and when we met him, he was very nice. He said he can meet us frequently, and that he wants to hear about God. He can come to church every Sunday if he desires, and he is willing to do the things we ask. It's always a big miracle when you meet someone who is willing to make time for you - meaning for God. I feel so blessed that Heavenly Father gives us so many miracles when we simply ask for them and are worthy to receive them. Sister Reach felt really strongly as we taught him that he was going to be baptized! Sister Reach is amazing.

Besides that, we have our part member daughter almost ready for baptism, the date is literally the only thing keeping her from being baptized! We need to work really closely with the family to pick a date and not push it off. Her father wants to be there, but he is so busy with work that he said they should baptize her in March or maybe even April. Pushing it off gives Satan too much time to do his work! We need another miracle to get the 28th of February to be a perfect day for her.

To conclude my letter to you, this is what I feel I've been learning, and how I've been changing to become more like Christ. I'm learning to trust in God and rely on the Atonement. Trials come because they are the only way to be converted, but God promises us He'll never leave us alone during our trials, in fact, He carries us through them. Sometimes, we just need to look back before we realize that the trial was exactly what we needed.

 This work is perfect, and it's wonderful that God makes up the difference for our imperfections.

Love you all! Have a great week!!
Love,
Sister Crabb

P-Day at Chinese Garden

Chinese Garden

Chinese Garden

statue of Mulan at Chinese Garden

statue of Confucius at Chinese Garden

Chinese Garden - Sister Crabb, Sister Reach, and the other sister companionship they live with

Chinese Garden Sister Crabb and her companion, Sister Reach

The red flags are for Chinese New Year coming soon. It's the year of the goat.

Punjabi top - traditional clothing of India

So, I'm exhausted in this picture, but this is a century egg!! It's basically an egg doused in horse urine. Disgusting. And, I ate it!  We googled century eggs and the horse urine is a myth or misconception: In Thai and Lao, the common word for this type of preserved egg literally means "horse urine eggs" - According to a persistent misconception, century eggs are or were once prepared by soaking eggs in horse urine. The myth may have arisen from the pungent odor of ammonia (a side-product of protein breakdown) given off by century eggs, which is reminiscent of urine.[7] However, this explanation is unfounded.

skit at zone meeting

Monday, February 2, 2015

Sorry, fast week! Just know I love you all! Here are the highlights. 

What do I say about this week? It was a miracle. We followed the spirit and scratched plans for a night and were able to find a less active family (miracle!!!) that is only home 20 percent of the time, their phone doesn't work, and they never let anyone in. Teaching them and getting in contact with them was a miracle! Literally. 

In other news this week, our part member families faith was sufficient for them to get permission for their daughter to be baptized! So cool!! Highlight of my week!!! It was a complete miracle, and I'm so grateful Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers. 

I learned the value of trusting God this week. It went from my head to my heart, and I'm so grateful. I plead all the time now for revelation, not that I didn't before, but it's like I get it now. I know that it is the ONLY way to do this work, and without it, I'm not fulfilling my purpose.  I'm sorry I'm not going into more specifics about these experiences, but just know, they are miracles, and they are helping me learn more than ever before that the church is true, God lives, and He and our Savior love us. So much!

I survived my Visa Run to JB (Johor Bahru, Malaysia), not even a problem. I went with a sister in my house, and an elder in my ward, Elder Young and Sister Schriever. The pics are from my "off day" in JB. So many people bore their testimony about the sister missionaries in church yesterday...I felt really awkward. 

Alyssa's response to our comment about trying frog: Yah...she didn't tell me, she just made me eat it. She was really smart about it. She knew I wouldn't eat it if she didn't! It was pretty plain..not my favorite for sure.  

The church is true. Love you!!

Love,

Sister Crabb

P-Day at the park

Visa Run to JB Malaysia

Visa Run...

They were selling cow urine at a store...not sure what it's for...

Hindu Temple in JB

Hindu Temple

  

Sister Crabb and Sister Schriever

Hindu Temple